Queer Studies & Advanced Waxing

Annie: Always scare Daniel-san, Miyagi hate fighting… Miyagi hate fighting.
Chang: Line?
Annie: Yeah, but you like karate.
Chang: Right, right, yeah, but, y-you like karate though.
Annie: So?
Chang: Line.
Annie: Chang, the audition’s at 3.
Chang: Maybe I shouldn’t go, you know, maybe I’m a bad actor.
Annie: Being good is a fraction of acting. It takes discipline and confidence.
Chang: Discipline, confidence. Okay from the top.
Annie: Always scare Daniel-san. Miyagi hate fighting.
Chang: Line.

Annie: Chang is auditioning for the stage adaptation of Karate Kid downtown.
Chang: Yeah, and it’s for the part of Daniel LaRusso. You got a problem with that, racist?
Abed: No, you’re acting now?
Chang: Yeah, you got a problem with that?
Abed: I’m clear.

Elroy: They took my snake, and they turned it into a plumber. They made the eggs, into barrels. The pine tree they made into a gorilla, but I recognized my design. Donkey Kong my ass. That’s construction snake.
Jeff: I don’t practice law anymore.
Elroy: But, we have a case, right?
Jeff: Isn’t everyone you’d be suing dead?
Elroy: That’s not cool, man.
Britta: Why would a tree throw eggs at a snake?
Elroy: Why would a plumber be fighting a monkey?
Britta: I don’t know, I don’t know.

Frankie: All right. I, I’m trying to find the IT lady. My emails to her get bounced back to me in Aramaic, and when I call, I hear an undulating high-pitched whistle that makes my nose bleed.

Elroy: I’m pretty handy with technology. I’m assuming it’s still the same, smaller holes, more bytes. Now what are we up to now, mega? Abed: Tera.
Elroy: Tera. They did it, those bastards. They finally did it.
Dean Pelton: Frankie, hire Elroy. Elroy, you’re the IT lady.

Richie: You’re gay, right? I mean, like openly gay.
Dean Pelton: I’m not openly anything, and gay doesn’t begin to cover it.

Carl: The question you have to ask is, am I openly gay?
Richie: Because, if you are that gayness could be a rocket, thrusting you to new gay heights.
Carl: And if you’re not. Well, there’s a lot of gay guys out there.
Richie: I assume that’s the selling point of the lifestyle.
Carl: You know, I, I, I never thought about it that way.
Richie: Well, I have. Cutting women out of sex, it’s genius.
Carl: Gay dean. Gay dean. Gay dean. Gay dean. I’m begging you to be a gay dean of the school board.

Elroy: Kid, animals have been murdering each other for 3 billion years. Birds have had their 15 million in the spotlight. The same as lizards and plants and they all just use it to murder, eat, screw and not invent Wi-Fi. Now we may end up saving this world, or blowing it to hell or making a new one. But we can’t do any of it while scheduling our evolution around the needs of the least lucky birds.
Abed: What are you, a demon? Did Clive Barker write you?
Elroy: Anyone who finds that nest, will come to the same decision. And you don’t have to get mean.
Abed: Mean? You just did a baby bird murder monologue.

Annie: We got the parts!
Jeff: Parts plural?
Chang: Well yeah, Annie got my part and I got the Asian part.
Annie: Chang Stop! We were cast as Mr. Miyagi and the Karate Kid, because we’re a good team!
Chang: We’re a team, because one of us is so talented she got cast outside her gender and the other one, got cast because of eye shape.
Annie: I am not letting you sabotage yourself like this. Let’s say you’re right. And like Sidney Poitier or Meg Ryan before you, you were cast for race. It’s what the actor does with the role they get, that matters.

Frankie: They want you to be a token homosexual?
Jeff: It’s a form of progress, 30 years ago, the most power an openly gay could achieve was the center square.
Dean Pelton: But I’m not just gay.
Jeff: What does that mean?
Dean Pelton: If coming out is a magic show, and gayness is a rabbit out of the hat, I’m one of those never-ending handkerchiefs.

Dean Pelton: Get ready, America. Dean Pelton is coming out as approximately two-sevenths of what he is.

Jeff: I am so curious.
Dean Pelton: Oh.
Jeff: Intellectually.
Dean Pelton: Oh…

Matt: Okay, I’m gonna stop you right there. I guess there are wrong answers. Quick adjustment, Ben.
Chang: Yeah?
Matt: Act better. Act better. Thanks. Annie, you’re doing great. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Chang: Can I ask about my motiv-
Matt: Keep me from puking is your motivation. Stop making me want to quit the theater and kill myself.

Matt: Okay. Can I see this tool box? Great. This is good. Got it. I got distracted cuz the tools were doing a better job than you. What happened I? Say it.
Chang: What happened I.
Matt: Liar. Stop lying to me. Say it.
Chang: What happened I.
Matt: What happened actor? You crying? You cry when I tell you to cry. So reabsorb that disgusting droplet of salt and bad choices back into your doughy body. And then call your mother to see if you can be reabsorbed back into her doughy body or so help me God, I will take that tear, I will freeze it, and I will stab you in the eye with it, you waste of a soul-shaped hole forgotten by God. Okay.
Annie: What should I-
Matt: Annie, don’t change a thing, you’re perfect. Unless you want to.
Annie: Okay.

Dean Pelton: I feel like scum.
Domingo: Gay people are scum?
Dean Pelton: Hey, don’t play that card with me young man. I make gayness look like Mormonism.

Matt: Hm, okay. Let’s stop there. I’m not gonna hit you. And it’s not because it’s illegal, and it’s certainly not because I’m afraid you know karate because there is nothing about your performance that is believable. See, we only hit things, that effect us. I don’t hit water, or old mayonnaise. Or the air after a fart has dissipated. And I’m not hitting you. You are the worst actor I’ve ever directed and I’ve directed both Wahlbergs! From the top! Danny does a bit with the floor sanders, Miyagi is amused, and Kenny gets me another god damned cup of coffee with six Splendas in it!

Annie: Well, if I threaten to quit maybe that will be enough for him to stop abusing Chang. I was kind of born to act, Britta. When I do it, I can feel it pleasing the universe.

Chang: Show me wax on.
Matt: This is the worst acting I’ve ever seen in my life.
Chang: Show me wax, off.
Matt: The ghost of your father just turned his back on you. Your ancestors are clawing their way deeper into the Earth to get away from you, you make me embarrassed to have thumbs, I can see air quotes around you.
Chang: Show me, paint fence.
Matt: Knock, knock, knock, anybody home? Oh look, there’s nobody here, oh it’s so dusty, it’s almost like nobody’s been here in years. There’s a note. “Never let me act.”
Annie: Mr. Lundergard, I’m sorry, but I cannot stand by while you do this.
Matt: That’s fine, you can go.
Annie: I’m not bluffing. You can’t make an actor more talented by yelling at them. And if you don’t stop, your lead character is going to walk.
Matt: Lead? You play Danny LaRusso.
Annie: Well I’m the Karate Kid.
Matt: The Karate Kid is about Kesuke Miyagi, an immigrant who fought against his own people in World War II, while his wife lost a child in an internment camp. Noriyuki Morita was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance. Ralph Macchio? Showed up. I cast you because your measurements allow me to use the same wardrobe as last year. I cast Ben because he has the sadness and talent that could make this show great. If I have to physically drill into his chest and suck it out with a straw! So you can take a flying kick and a rolling donut! You’re fired.
Annie: But I’m talented, too, right?
Matt: What? No. Really? Really? Oh my God! You’re like doing a terrible Vinnie Barbarino up here. But, like, I know you’re not capable of anything better, so, that’s why I’ve been so nice to you. Take care Annie. Yikes, right? What a diva.

Abed: I’m taping this. This is on video.
Elroy: Guys This is two white security guards versus one unarmed black man and two baby birds. Your move.
Dean Pelton: Stand down. Stand down. No security, no weapons. Just one unarmed black man versus one unarmed, openly gay dean. Now move that nest, please. Just a hair back Domingo, it’s like you’re breathing for me.

Dean Pelton: I have called this press conference because I have been less than honest with the public. You know me as the openly gay dean of Greendale Community College, but that doesn’t even begin to describe what I really am. I belong to one of the most marginalized and least openly honest groups in America. I am a politician. Now what does that mean? Are politicians like you? Well we look like you, but we will say and do whatever we have to in order to acquire and keep our jobs. It means nothing I say and very few of the things I think can be trusted. I am tired of being in this particular closet so I am coming out now. I only hope that you can accept an openly political person on your board. If not, I understand. Thank you. Just faster if get to my office this way. We don’t need any pictures of this.

Abed: Two of them died. There’s one left. He’s hanging on, but I’m worried he’s turning into a symbol of my own innocence.

Frankie: Isn’t Chang’s play tonight?
Annie: If any of you go, you’re supporting abuse.
Britta: Oh, dial it back, Annie.
Jeff: Well, I’m definitely in. It’ll be interesting to see how his fake crying is different from his real crying.
Elroy: Well I’m a big fan of the performing arts, but I’ll go to Chang’s play anyway.

Matt: Directors have a saying. Actors are worthless, empty-headed homunculi, but the right one, in the right role can change the world. Hm, I have found the right one. He’s found the right role, and tonight, your world changes. You’re welcome.

Jeff: I’m speechless.
Frankie: I forgot Chang was up there.
Britta: Me, too. It’s such a relief to be able to support him out of something other than fear.
Abed: I guess all that suffering Chang endured paid off. It’s not what the play suggests, but you have to wonder if it wouldn’t have been better for Daniel to get beat up even more.
Annie: I am at a total loss about what lesson to learn from any of this.
Elroy: Maybe that’s the lesson.
Britta: Hm.
Abed: I lost a button.
Elroy: Maybe we all lost a button.